Dawnpoint

Chapter 24

"They said they'd be there tonight, right?" Liliana asked Phoenix as she pulled on her new boots, the old ones having fallen apart almost completely.

Phoenix nodded and attached his spear to his back. On their previous hunting trip, they had passed by the mansion and caught a glimpse of a note on the floor indicating for them to meet them later that day. Oryn looked up from his mattress and frowned.

"We don't even know when tonight is," he said, looking over at Micah. "We don't exactly have a watch."

"Then we go now," Micah suggested, already grabbing his bow.

And so they went, taking turns leading and keeping an eye out for the various creatures that could harm them. There wasn't just the threat of the Rulies anymore, Micah realised, but unlike before it didn't bother him. He felt strangely calm as they made their way to the mansion and made small conversations about fighting techniques and their own normality.

When they arrived at the mansion, the other three were already there with the camera set up and panning it across the grounds. When Levi spotted Micah, he grinned and ran over to them.

"We have a plan!" he exclaimed excitedly and walked back with them, stopping at his sister's side.

Alex nodded at them while Kato avoided Micah's gaze, deliberately looking away from the camera when they all sat down. Micah frowned but relaxed when Phoenix squeezed his knee lightly and smiled, Oryn and Liliana greeting Levi.

"We've been studying this a lot," Alex said as she pulled out Kato's notepad and flicked through the pages. "And we think there's a way we can re-create the explosion."

A chorus of panicked 'no's' came from the four survivors, startling the others.

"Are you stupid?" Phoenix directed at Alex. "That could kill you."

"I agree," Micah said, looking between the three. "It's too dangerous."

Levi fiddled with the camera, attaching it to the tripod in the centre of the circle. "We don't know the chemicals used anyway, and there's no way to get them without raising suspicion."

"Not to mention you could all get dragged here," Liliana argued.

Levi hummed and then held his hands out to demonstrate the theoretical explosion.

"The barrier is already collapsing, as Oryn said," he explained as he circled his hands together and then spread them apart. "Then there's a possibility we could open a gateway to your dimension or reality, whatever it is."

He looked around for stray rocks and placed them in front of him. As he laid them out, he claimed them to be the survivors and the 'real' world, using a stray twig to signify the barrier. The others watched him curiously as he held his finger up and continued explaining.

"With this work we could potentially separate the molecular structure of the universe," he said as he snapped the twig and returned it, a small gap between the pieces. "And you could come back through."

Oryn shook his head as he picked up another stone and placed it on his side of the twig. "Then the Rulies and any other creatures could come through."

"Not necessarily," Kato and Alex said simultaneously.

Alex turned to a different page in the notebook, one filled with mindless scribbles and multiple ideas crossed out. She pointed to a circled sentence, twisting it so they could read it.

"Decreasing the speed of molecules allows the attraction between them to bring them closer to each other," she said, and Kato continued for her.

"There's a chance the gateway would close itself."